


The Manbun Afficionado

by betts



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pizza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-14 02:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16904151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: Steve doesn't evenlikepizza.





	The Manbun Afficionado

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: AU where Steve and Bucky have a class together and Steve has a huge crush on Bucky but then class ends but Bucky works at a delivery place, and Sam and Nat find out so they keep having food delivered to Steve at all hours without warning.
> 
> A ficlet I wrote in 2015. Moving over in the great tumblr purge.

Steve has gotten really good at drawing manbuns. Man ponytails. Shoulder-length brown hair.  _Wet_  shoulder-length brown hair. Hands running through wet shoulder-length brown hair and water droplets falling on a worn old leather jacket from rainy spring days.

The downside is that Steve has gotten really bad at paying attention to class because the guy who sits in front of him happens to be infinitely more interesting than biology.

The only biology on Steve’s mind involves crawling under the guy’s desk and blowing him like there’s no tomorrow.

During attendance, the professor calls him James. James never responds aloud, just tips his fingers toward the professor in a lazy half-salute. Steve wishes he could get a better look at James’ hands, because then he’d draw those too. And his face, his neck, his chest, his—

God, Steve’s gotta get a grip on himself.

But not literally. He may be slacking in class but he’s not that bad off yet.

The semester is almost over and James doesn’t even know Steve exists. Steve has never spoken to him, and James has never said a single word in class. The only time Steve ever sees his face is when class is over, and James hauls up his backpack on his shoulder, runs his hand through his hair, and leaves the room. And Steve tends to marvel at him for far too long before packing up his own stuff and following behind.

It’s truly unfortunate that near the end of the semester, Natasha has to tutor Steve so he gets something higher than a C. What’s worse is that she looks through his notebook to see what kind of notes he’s taken, and instead finds picture after picture of James’ head.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she says.

Steve shrugs, his thin frame feeling even smaller than usual.

She looks at him. “This is creepy. You’ve gotta know this is creepy.”

Steve’s only defense is, “He has nice hair.”

Natasha glares at him. It’s the look she gives when she’s prying for intel but won’t even bother asking because she knows Steve is gonna cave anyway.

“His name is James Barnes,” Steve adds.

She cocks an eyebrow.

And then the floodgates open. “I think maybe he’s a history major because sometimes he falls asleep on a stack of three history textbooks. Sometimes he carries a helmet so I think he drives a motorcycle maybe? He always wears these henleys that look too small for him, and sometimes he forgets to shave so he gets this, like, stubble on his face, and his mouth does this thing —”

“Okay, I get it,” Natasha interrupts. “So the impression that I’m getting is that,” she ticks items off on her fingers as she counts, “you don’t know him, you’ve never spoken to him, and he doesn’t know you exist.”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah.”

Natasha sighs. “We’re not letting what happened with Tony happen again.”

Steve winces. He’s never taken rejection particularly well, so it’s become easier to fantasize about his crushes than pursue them. Case in point: Tony Stark, most popular boy in their high school. Steve asked him out and Tony didn’t handle it in a particularly mature manner. Instead of giving Steve a polite thanks-but-no-thanks, he turned Steve into the laughing stock of the school.

So nowadays, Steve likes to keep his distance.

“No more projecting your manic pixie dreamboy fantasies on this guy,” Natasha says. “The semester has two weeks left and you need to get at least a B so your mother won’t lecture me on your birthday about how she wishes someone could be around to  _really_  take care of you.”

“Aw, c’mon, she doesn’t do that.”

“Not when you’re around, she doesn’t. But she gives me this look like I disappointed her. And since the last time I saw my parents was when I was three, I’m not really great at handling that.”

“Fine. I’ll make a more concerted effort. Now what the hell is mitochondria?”

“Mitochondria the powerhouse of the cell,” she begins, and Steve condemns himself to an afternoon of boredom.

* * *

Part of Steve—the part that thinks his life is a movie—fantasizes that on the last day of class, he’ll drop his pencil and James will pick it up and turn around and some sappy Avett Brothers song will start playing and then a falling-in-love montage will commence.

But what actually happens is that Steve drops his pencil and James picks it up, and Steve thinks he might have an asthma attack when he realizes that his notebook is open to a page of James’ totally stellar manbun. He scrambles to close it. He makes it just in time before James turns around and puts the pencil on his desk, and their eyes meet, and—

Yep, Steve is totally gonna have an asthma attack.

He manages to choke out a “Thanks,” with a tight-lipped smile, and James gives him a kind of quizzical—but also intensely, unfairly beautiful—look before turning back around. Steve shoves his hand in his pocket to get his inhaler. His lungs relax when he breathes it in, and despite almost dying, he still counts the interaction as a win.

* * *

Steve is actually kind of thankful when the semester is over and he can spend a whole three months doing nothing but drawing, working at the art store on campus, hanging out with Natasha and Sam, and not getting distracted by cute boys with horribly egregious DSL.

He’s only thankful for about six hours, at which point someone knocks on his front door. Sam and Natasha are on the couch watching Archer, and considering Steve is covered in paint, he expects one of them to get it.

But the only movement they make is when Sam looks over at him from the TV and says, “Can you get that?”

Natasha’s lips are pursed like she’s trying not to laugh. Without a word, Steve sets down his paintbrush and stares at his roommates in suspicion before he goes to open the door.

He almost has another asthma attack. It’s James, in a blue polo shirt, carrying a box of pizza. He’s looking down at the receipt and reads, “Large sausage for Steve Rogers,” before looking up at Steve. Recognition dawns on him and he adds, “Hey, I know you! You sat behind me in bio.”

Steve is going to die. His lungs are gonna close up, and he’s gonna just lay down and die.

When Steve doesn’t say anything, James asks, “How’d you do on the final?”

In his peripheral vision, Steve sees a twenty dollar bill on the table by the door. He grabs it up, takes the pizza, shoves the bill in James’ hand, shouts, “BAD,” and slams the door shut.

Sam and Natasha are rolling over each other with laughter. Steve wants to bash them over the head with the pizza box, but instead, he throws it on the coffee table between them and storms off to his room.

* * *

The second time it happens, Steve is alone in the apartment; Sam and Natasha having gone out drinking. He’s reading a book and it’s almost two in the morning when he hears a knock at the door. Thinking Sam and/or Natasha forgot their keys, he opens it. But then he sees James—who says, “Hey!” and smiles all excitedly—and Steve takes the twenty that Sam and Natasha left on the table, throws it at James, mutters, “I don’t even  _like_  pizza,” and closes the door.

* * *

The third time it happens, Steve is neck-deep in paint again and Sam, Natasha, and Clint are playing Catan around the coffee table. There’s a knock on the door and Steve says, “C’mon guys, really? Isn’t this getting old?”

They look at each other in confusion, and Steve notices there’s no twenty by the door. He goes over and opens it to find James there again, but he’s not in a blue polo. He’s wearing a black t-shirt and skinny jeans and his hair is in a messy bun and Steve wants to climb him like a fucking tree.

Before Steve can say anything, James blurts out, “It’s not pizza.”

“What?”

“You said you don’t like pizza. So I brought you pasta.” He holds out the tin to him. “It’s not even from the pizza place. My ma made it.”

Steve stares at him.

Sam breaks the silence by stepping around Steve and taking the pasta from James’ hands. “I’m just gonna…take this now,” he says, and goes back to the coffee table.

Steve and James are still staring at each other in silence, until James says, “So, I, you know, hope it’s okay that I stopped by. In retrospect it’s probably kind of creepy—”

“I’ve drawn the back of your head over thirty times,” Steve blurts out.

“I practiced this conversation for ten whole minutes in the parking lot and it’s not going at _all_ like I planned.”

Steve can’t stop. In his peripheral vision, he sees Natasha, Sam, and Clint staring at them with stunned interest while idly eating the tin of pasta with a shared fork. “You’re the hottest guy I’ve ever met.”

“You’re the hottest guy  _I’ve_  ever met.”

Then, at the same time, they say, “You wanna grab a drink?”

Steve doesn’t wait for an answer. He steps outside and closes the door behind him, ignoring the catcalls and wolf whistles of his friends.

“So how do you feel about art?” Steve asks, making his way down the stairs.

They reach the parking lot to find James’ motorcycle, and he hands a helmet to Steve. “I’m an art history major, actually. And I go by Bucky, by the way.”

They hop on Bucky’s motorcycle, and Steve settles in behind him, arms around his waist, this time relishing in the familiar but welcome view of the back of Bucky’s head. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] The Manbun Afficionado](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18266207) by [Loolph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loolph/pseuds/Loolph)




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